Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age

1. Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age Zach, Emily, and Ellie

2. New President The Republican president Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868. He ran against the Democrat elect Horatio Seymour. Grant won with 214 electoral votes, Seymour getting only 80. Grant barely one the popular vote: 3,013,421 to 2,706,829.

3. Ulysses S. Grant "My failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."

4. Economic Scandals • Millionaires • Jim Fisk and Jay Gould • Tried to corner the gold market • Failed when the U.S. treasury sold gold • “Boss” Tweed milked 200 million dollars from New York City. • Was caught for his wrongdoings, persecuted, and later died in jail.

5. Corruption Continues • Credit Mobilier • A railroad construction company. • Paid itself a lot of money for even the smallest of jobs • A New York newspaper busted them. • It was discovered that Congressman and even the Vice President were taking part as stockholders for the company. • Most of Grant’s was corrupt. But Grant tried to remain to be an honest and good president.

6. Politics • Liberal Republicans urged the purge of Grant’s administration • They nominated Horace Greeley for their presidential candidate. • The democrats also supported Greeley • Wanted an end to Reconstruction; peace between North and South • Grant crushed Greeley both in popular and electoral vote • Like many third parties, the Liberal Republicans left behind a legacy by forcing Grant’s administration to clean up its act.

7. Money Troubles • The economic panic of 1873 happened because of overstretched loans and investments. The books were hit hard. • “Hard Money” advocates gained several advancements in the mining of silver and gold which helped to pay of debts.

8. Pallid Politics • During the 3 decades of the Gilded Age politics were often petty. Any small event could tip the balance towards the other side. • Although both parties roughly agreed with each other on many issues, they were very competitive and they “commented fierce loyalty from their members.” “The lifeblood of both parties was patronage.”

9. New President Grant almost ran for a third term. But, instead Rutherford S. Hayes stepped in as 19th president. The election was pretty close between Hayes and Tilden. But Hayes prevailed.

10. Rutherford S. Hayes “Coming in, I was denounced as a fraud by all the extreme men of the opposing party, and as an ingrate and a traitor by the same class of men in my own party. Going out, I have the good will, blessings, and approval of the best people of all parties . . .”

11. The Compromise of 1877 The compromise eventually stated that Hayes became President and violence was averted, but Republicans drastically lowered their “commitment to racial equality.”

12. Jim Crow • With the withdraw of federal troops and the collapse of Reconstruction, Southern whites again took the political reins and ruthlessly put the blacks back down in society. • Masters became landlords and slaves became tenant farmers • Jim Crow Laws were officially legalized as segregation laws. • Southerners also passed voter-registration. Blacks were given unfair tests. • Plessy v. Fergusen (1896) ruled that separate but equal was constitutional.

13. Social Clashes • The four largest railroad presidents cut their workers’ wages by 10%. The workers revolted. Hayes called for federal troops to quell the uprising. (1877) • Many Chinese men came to California for gold and to work on the railroads. After both businesses died down, the ones who stayed lived alone, poor, and in fear. • Under Dennis Kearney, many Irishmen abused the Chinese. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and it remained in effect until 1943.

14. New President Garfield won the election against the Democratic nominee Hancock by 10,000 popular votes. “James A. Garfield attacked political corruption and won back for the Presidency a measure of prestige it had lost during the Reconstruction period.”

15. James A. Garfield “I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not a fool, which is a matter of no small difficulty.”

16. A President Murdered Garfield was shot and killed. He died on September 19, 1881. His death had one positive; it shocked the politicians into reforming the spoils system.

17. New President Arthur, Garfield’s Vice President, started the cleaning up process. The Pendleton Act of 1883, the “Magna Carta of civil-service reform” stated that compulsory campaigns were illegal and it established the Civil Service Commission to make appointments to federal office based on skill rather than “pull.”

18. Chester A. Arthur "Men may die, but the fabric of our free institutions remains unshaken."

19. New President Cleveland was the first democrat to be elected after the Civil War. He won the election with support from the Democrats and the reform Republicans. Despite his claims of bringing reforms, he fired almost 2/3 of the 120,000 federal employees to make room for “deserving democrats.”

20. Grover Cleveland “A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves.”

21. Lower Tariff • The tariff, which had been raised again during the Civil War, was bringing in a lot of money for American industry and “by 1881the treasury was running an annual surplus amounting to 145 million dollars.” • Cleveland wanted to see the tariff lowered. So he threw an appeal in Congress. This was the first in years that an issue had really divided the two parties. Republicans were for higher tariffs and Democrats were for lower.

22. New Political Part The Populist Party was formed in 1892 “They called for a litany of items including: a graduated income tax, government regulation of railroads and telegraphs/telephones,direct elections of U.S. senators, a one term limit, initiative and referendum, a shorter workday, and immigration restriction”

23. Depression • Depression broke out in the year 1893 in the United States. • “It was the first such panic in the new urban and industrial age, and it caused much outrage and hardships.” • About 8,000 American business house collapsed in 6 months.

24. Dismay of the President • Cleveland had to his dismay turn to J.P. Morgan to bale the country out of the Depression. • Cleveland also had to issue the Wilson-Gorman Tariff. “He’d promised to lower the tariff, but so many tack-ons had been added, the result was nill.”

25. AssessmentQuestions